New bathhouse nears completion at Herring Cove in Provincetown

Friday

Apr 5, 2013 at 12:01 AMApr 5, 2013 at 5:20 AM

The construction of the new Herring Cove Bathhouse complex is moving along on schedule, unimpeded by the severe winter weather that has proven so disruptive elsewhere on the Cape and by budget cuts that threaten to derail other Seashore operations.

Kaimi Rose Lum

The construction of the new Herring Cove Bathhouse complex is moving along on schedule, unimpeded by the severe winter weather that has proven so disruptive elsewhere on the Cape and by budget cuts that threaten to derail other National Seashore operations.

The five buildings in the complex are framed and sheathed, their profiles clearly visible over the dunes on the approach from Moors Road or Route 6. Karst Hoogeboom, chief of maintenance for the Seashore, said he expects the contractor, Classic Site Solutions, to start going over the punch lists sometime next month.

“We’ve got the buildings all wrapped in Tyvec, and they’re moving forward, either on schedule or a couple days behind schedule, but we’re still anticipating completion in May,” Hoogeboom said.

The facility will open to the public after the finishing touches are put on, a process that could take another month. Hoogeboom said the plan is to have the bathhouse ready by Fourth of July weekend.

The five structures include a concessions stand, a bathroom facility, a building that will house changing rooms, a station for lifeguards and first aid, and a garage for storing ATVs, a surf rescue boat and other equipment. A network of ramps will connect the buildings and extend to the parking lot and beach. There also will be outdoor rinse-off stations and a shaded area for picnic tables, Hoogeboom said.

The complex will be built to LEED silver standards, he added, with environmentally friendly features such as solar panels. More than 99 percent of the debris from the former bathhouse — everything from copper piping to cement — was recycled.

The original, concrete bathhouse stood at Herring Cove for 60 years until the park demolished it last October. Though a local icon (Provincetown artist Jay Critchley paid tribute to it by taking over the building for 10 days of performance art just before it was torn down), the bathhouse was deemed structurally unsound and, with its wide, impermeable asphalt base, unfit to withstand shoreline erosion.

The new buildings, wood-framed and constructed on pilings that elevate them three or four feet above the level of nearby roads, were designed with their changing environment in mind. Strengthening materials and stabilizing hurricane “clips” were incorporated into their frames so that, should erosion threaten, they may be picked up with a crane and moved back from the shoreline fairly easily. The process would take about a month, Hoogeboom said, but it would be more straightforward than other building relocation projects.

Erosion has been a concern at Herring Cove, where battering waves caused the collapse of the macadam revetment in front of the former bathhouse during the winter of 2011-12. Remarkably, however, said Hoogeboom, the Herring Cove shoreline sustained hardly any weather-related damage this past winter, one of the stormiest in recent memory.

The Seashore received another windfall at Herring Cove in that the bathhouse project was spared any sequester-related slashing. Funds for the work were settled before federal budget cuts went into effect last month, putting the park in the red for the coming season. The Seashore is facing a $375,000 deficit between now and the end of September, and at a recent meeting Supt. George Price said it would likely force him to take drastic measures, such as eliminating most of the interpretive programming and shuttering the Province Lands Visitor Center on Race Point Road.

“The irony in Provincetown is that we might be closing the Province Lands Visitor Center but we’ll be having a ribbon-cutting for the Herring Cove Bathhouse,” Price said.